Monday, November 12, 2018
Obscurity of the Day: Lucky Mike / Mike and the Major
T.S. Allen did very well with his various kid strips and panels, but by the late 1900s he'd lost favor at the major New York papers and was reduced to selling his wares at the likes of NEA and the Philadelphia Press.
One of his last series is Lucky Mike, produced for the Philadelphia Press from March 15 1908 to February 19 1911*. It concerns a street urchin kid, which is practically required in an Allen strip, but this kid has been adopted into a well to do family. Mike's main foil in his new family is 'the Major', a grandfatherly type who tries to be a mentor to the kid with uniformly unfortunate results.
The Major became a billed co-star after May 30 1909, when the title was changed to variations of Mike and the Major. In 1908-09 Lucky Mike was licensed by the Press to McClure Syndicate, which ran it in one of their readyprint sections.
Allen seemed to be serving up some sort of bizarre slang in that second example above -- can anyone decode the meaning of "VENT DUBS" and "CHACK VAULTEP"?
* Source: Philadelphia Press. Mark Johnson presents in the comments a strong case that I missed the real start of the strip on 3/8/09.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
It's a little tough to make out on the printing, but I think the Major is saying he used to be a "crack vaulter" himself -- that is, someone who used to be really good ("cracking") at jumping over fences.
I concur about "crack vaulter." As for vent dubs, it's marbles-playing slang! See at link: http://tinyurl.com/y7epqruq
Hello Allan-
According to Cole's notes, Lucky Mike debuted a week earlier than you. Here's the breakdown for that section:
PHILADELPHIA PRESS 8 March 1908
John-Poor John. By Hugh Doyle (1/2) (Blind Man's Bluff)
Mrs. Rummage-The Bargain Fiend By hy Gage (1/2) (Locked in Ice Box)
Hairbreadth harry, The Boy Hero Drawn by C.W. Kahles(1/2)(Ice from Harry's truck helps Belinda escape from Rudolph & Hounds)
Lucky Mike-He's Adopted! Drawn by T.S. Allen (1/2) (debut- couple "adopts" newsboy right off the street)
He used the actual PRESS files. I notice the second week, the size was only (1/4), to accomodate a premium promotion ad.
According to Cole's notes, Lucky Mike debuted a week earlier than you. Here's the breakdown for that section:
PHILADELPHIA PRESS 8 March 1908
John-Poor John. By Hugh Doyle (1/2) (Blind Man's Bluff)
Mrs. Rummage-The Bargain Fiend By hy Gage (1/2) (Locked in Ice Box)
Hairbreadth harry, The Boy Hero Drawn by C.W. Kahles(1/2)(Ice from Harry's truck helps Belinda escape from Rudolph & Hounds)
Lucky Mike-He's Adopted! Drawn by T.S. Allen (1/2) (debut- couple "adopts" newsboy right off the street)
He used the actual PRESS files. I notice the second week, the size was only (1/4), to accomodate a premium promotion ad.
# posted by 
: 11/12/2018 11:40 PM
: 11/12/2018 11:40 PM
Thanks Chris and Paul for untangling that obscure marbles jargon and bad lettering!
Mark, my start date is from the Press microfilm at the Philly Free Library. My indexing notes for 3/8 have Harry, Rummage, Poor John plus the McClure strips Wags and Bub. Then on the 15th Mike is added without losing any other strips. Unfortunately I wasn't marking strip sizes so I don't know how it fitted in. Was the microfilm missing a page?
--Allan
Mark, my start date is from the Press microfilm at the Philly Free Library. My indexing notes for 3/8 have Harry, Rummage, Poor John plus the McClure strips Wags and Bub. Then on the 15th Mike is added without losing any other strips. Unfortunately I wasn't marking strip sizes so I don't know how it fitted in. Was the microfilm missing a page?
--Allan
As every page is accounted for, I will say that no pages were missing in any of the 3/08 sections. Cole's capsule designation for the 15th's Lucky Mike is : (Gang pushes him in mud). The ad next to it was for the Standard Publishing Co. of Passaic, NJ. Since the Press only (frustratingly) used boiler plate headings, Cole had to add the short episode designations.
Apparently the Press syndicate was only offering two pages of material by 1908, usually four half page strips intended as inside pages for a client 's section. I think the other two pages were the McClure stuff and maybe Polly Sleepyhead or something like that. So what you have for the 8th that is, of Press-generated items, you didn't take down the Lucky Mike entry, it had to be under the Harry in the second page and you've left that half page unaccounted for.
Apparently the Press syndicate was only offering two pages of material by 1908, usually four half page strips intended as inside pages for a client 's section. I think the other two pages were the McClure stuff and maybe Polly Sleepyhead or something like that. So what you have for the 8th that is, of Press-generated items, you didn't take down the Lucky Mike entry, it had to be under the Harry in the second page and you've left that half page unaccounted for.
# posted by : 11/19/2018 6:42 PM
: 11/19/2018 6:42 PM
Hi Mark -- I checked out other online papers running Press material in 1908, and I can't find any that used both pages on 3/8. How annoying! Four different papers, all of which used only a single page, the rest being McClure stuff. Interesting that McClure seemingly offered only one page of the Press material generally, and dumped the rest. Didn't think they'd be in a position by then to ignore any material they could throw into a section. --Allan
It could be that another paper in the same cities had the other Press page. I've seen this happen with North American, WCP and even Hearst titles. Some papers only took one of the four Press offerings, namely Hairbreadth Harry, which I've seen in a Baltimore paper and a Tacoma one, filling the remainder of the page with story copy or one column cartoons and jokes.
I have a theory that when a strip appeared in 1/4 size in Philly, to accomodate an ad, the clients would not necessarily run that ad or any ad, and would need a regular 1/2 page strip. Therefore, perhaps the 1/4 size episode would never be seen outside of the Press itself. What that alternate strip might have been I don't know. The Press seems to be a second rate organization, maybe they just recycled an old strip.
I can't think of another paper that took all the Press stuff. They had a cover page in those days, at least until 1907, but they seem to be the only ones that ever used it.
Cole was as precise as he could be, so it would seem that there indeed was a Mike on 8th March, and he described it as the Debut. So for what its worth, it would be the right date to me. He made those notes almost forty years ago, and after all this time,they're actually being used for something.
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I have a theory that when a strip appeared in 1/4 size in Philly, to accomodate an ad, the clients would not necessarily run that ad or any ad, and would need a regular 1/2 page strip. Therefore, perhaps the 1/4 size episode would never be seen outside of the Press itself. What that alternate strip might have been I don't know. The Press seems to be a second rate organization, maybe they just recycled an old strip.
I can't think of another paper that took all the Press stuff. They had a cover page in those days, at least until 1907, but they seem to be the only ones that ever used it.
Cole was as precise as he could be, so it would seem that there indeed was a Mike on 8th March, and he described it as the Debut. So for what its worth, it would be the right date to me. He made those notes almost forty years ago, and after all this time,they're actually being used for something.
# posted by : 11/20/2018 10:00 AM
: 11/20/2018 10:00 AM 